Since our business is global and internet-based, Wonderful Machine places a lot of emphasis on innovation and new ways of communicating. It just makes sense to adapt to the technology available to us and the social world we’re plugged into. So when another business in the world of photography has a similar approach, we’re interested.
One such company is Blend Images. When we started talking to their CEO, Rick Becker-Leckrone, we knew we had to pull him in for a blog interview. Rick took the time to give in-depth answers to our questions and we’d like to share them with you here.
Can you give us a short history of Blend Images and your involvement with the company?
While working for various stock image agencies in technology and creative capacities since 1990, I recognized the need for more diverse stock media. In 2003, after stepping down from my position as Co-Director of Photography for Corbis Images, I invited 22 of the world’s top photographers to my home in Las Vegas to review a business plan for starting a new agency with a multi-cultural focus. Fortunately, they all showed up, and all chose to invest in the new venture.
Blend was born shortly after our initial meeting. We quickly generated approximately 15,000 images for royalty-free distribution and began negotiations with major content resellers to represent our content. The company is structured as an LLC with almost equal equity interest held by each member (how partners are referred to in an LLC). I was elected to be CEO at the company’s inception and still hold this position. Blend now represents over 160 photographers and has distributed almost 100,000 images and clips worldwide. And we generate about 1,500 new images every month for our sales partners. We also license content directly at blendimages.com.
Your company specializes in multicultural stock photography; why is that important?
The demographics of the United States in particular, but also many countries around the world, are changing dramatically. More than ever, we live in a mobile society and global marketplace. Where homogeneity once prevailed, diversity is now becoming the norm. Logically, it follows that advertising must reflect these contemporary cultural realities of society to be effective. Even in the smallest rural communities in the Midwest and South, it is as likely your neighbor will be a person of color as not.
Over the past six years, we have been closely watching the transformative efforts of advertising and marketing to reflect this new reality. It’s astounding how much has changed, so much so that Blend itself almost doesn’t need to foreground its multicultural focus. Diversity in advertising is no longer a mere afterthought. We believe that the very vision of “Blend,” from day one, has given us a unique advantage, frankly, in building the strongest library of diverse lifestyle and business stock imagery. That aim was our central, founding mission. It still is. That our content transcends stereotypes – by celebrating equally our human commonalities and our cultural differences – may be the best reason for clients to consider licensing a Blend image for their next project.
What effect do you hope to have, or have you had, on the stock industry in general?
What I hoped Blend would become, it largely has. But we can do more. When I graduated from college (RIT, 1990), my first job was for a medium-sized agency in Los Angeles called Westlight. The owner’s name was Craig Aurness. Craig made his name as a top shooter for National Geographic. Westlight was founded by a few Nat Geo shooters and started out with mostly editorial content. Craig tried to make Westlight a home for photographers by photographers. I always respected Craig’s passion for photography and his heartfelt love for the professionals in the field. With the consolidation of picture houses throughout the past 20 years, there aren’t too many places left where the focus is on the shooter.
Personally, I have been a stock photographer for almost 15 years. My images can be found not only in Blend’s collections but also at Corbis and Getty Images. I get it. I’ve been there. I know what it feels like to drop 10 or 15k on a shoot and worry that I’ll never make my money back. While we can’t outright promise success to any photographer; some will do better than others. But we try to offer as much information and guidance to our artists as possible. Once a year, we meet face-to-face, photographers and staff alike. Last year, we met in conjunction with the Palm Springs Photo Festival. (Next year, we expect to do the same.) We bring in guest speakers and focus on both content production and creativity in stock. Our 2010 meeting had a strong focus on “storytelling” and a technical focus on using HDSLRs for motion content production. In 2011, we’re going to be focusing on creating strong conceptual stock imagery. And again, we’ll have a very interesting group of speakers.
It’s a lot of fun, both informative and inspiring. Unfortunately, few other agencies do the same. Most photo agencies don’t get together with their photographers very much anymore. In fact, at most agencies these days, you can’t even get an art director or editor to work with you on developing a shoot. Blend, however, still offers that sounding board. Another useful service we provide our photographers is automatic enrollment to our listserv called Stockpros – an invitation-only bulletin board/mailing list service. Need to find a modeling agency in Argentina? Likely someone on Stockpros can help. In short, we value the role of a creative community and mutual support. Photographers used to be the soul of the stock photo industry. And while there is nothing wrong with the talents corporate business entities bring to the table, unfortunately, the artists can sometimes feel left out of the equation. We hope to bring back some balance.
How does your company change the field for photographers?
We offer photographers the ability to have their work represented by every major photo agency in the world. While we do license to clients directly, our core competency revolves around creating high-value stock content and developing systems for efficient distribution to markets worldwide. Blend’s Portal system, for example, lets photographers upload submissions, communicate visually with their editors, upload and add metadata to high-res files, and monitor progress through our system. With our Loupe application, our photographers can log in and view all their sales. Loupe provides a visual representation of images licensed and downloads reports – either directly into Excel, or as data to be imported into their own sales tracking system. Through blendimages.com, our photographers also have access to “BlendArtists,” which archives hundreds of presentation and creative research reports, as well as regular postings from our creative team.
I should also mention that Blend now offers up to 50% royalties in both RF and RM licensing models for photographers with over 1,000 images on file. Royalty rates at most agencies are typically 20% in RF and up to 40% for RM licensing. In addition to our “for photographers, by photographers” ethos, Blend is unique and, I would say, “field-changing.” We offer an elegant solution for maximum worldwide exposure for stock content.
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